XADM: KCC Uses Increasingly Large Amounts of Memory

• Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.0

SYMPTOMS

As the number of sites in an organization grows, the knowledge consistency checker (KCC) consumes more and more memory each time it runs. With 212+ servers, the directory service has been observed to use 110 MB of virtual memory routinely, and at peak has grown to the point where all virtual memory in the system is used, causing out-of- memory failures in the directory service and other services. Whenever the KCC runs in such cases, Windows NT and Exchange become almost entirely unresponsive and replication slows drastically.

The Exchange Administrator program may also crash with a memory violation when you try to select the global address list on a server that contains a great number of sites.

CAUSE

The Jet database uses 4-KB pages and sets up the maximum record size to be 3,784 bytes each. The directory stores the information for the sites in one object, each taking about 12-20 bytes of space. When the record size is too large, the directory accepts the additional information and does not record any problems.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0.

This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. For information on obtaining the Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K

Keywords          : kbbug5.00 kbfix5.00.sp2 XADM
Version           : WinNT:5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix kbpatch